Welsh Marilyn Backpack – Day 1

Tuesday 16 July - Llansilin to Llyn Lluncaws

Marilyns: Gyrn Moelfre (SJ 184 293; 524m) and Cadair Berwyn (SJ 071 323; 832m)

Distance and Ascent: 27.5km, 1300m

Weather: mainly overcast with just one shower

What an excellent day I had! I can wax lyrical about this route (even if that is self-congratulatory in that it was of my own design). With lovely immediate surroundings, great views and interesting buildings (particularly the chapels, from a little quaint one, to a big abandoned one in an unlikely location), it made me a very happy backpacker. Even being chased by a dog shortly after setting out, at the only farm I passed through, didn’t dampen my spirits (the dog barked and chased; it didn’t snarl and lunge). 

 

Day 1, Part 1 (couldn't fit it in one screenshot)

Day 1, Part 2

I shall narrate via the photos:

Just after passing through the farm of the chasing dog, and off road onto my first track of the day:

Just out of frame to the left of the photo above was all manner of farm equipment. Amateur, as farm dumping grounds go:

View N from Gyrn Moelfre – the quaint tiny chapel is nestled in the trees just right of centre:

Proof that I was there taking these snaps:

Bit of a random snap. Placing an online order last week, I was £2.03 short of getting free postage (otherwise £5) , so I bought a high protein snack bar for £2.09 (purely because it was the cheapest item I could find on the website in question). I don’t know who positively chooses to buy these, but it certainly didn’t suit my tastes. I can only assume it was so incredibly sweet to take the mind off the pasty texture.

Looking from the summit I’d decided it was almost certainly feasible to drop down the N side of the hill, but I didn’t prove the point because I had no interest in cutting 1.5km off my route. Descending to the E took me onto this nice grassy track.

The most recent OS mapping still shows the route continuing along the track, through this gate, but the signage tells of a permanent official path diversion. The revised route is to the detriment of the walker (moreover horse and bike riders) to such an extent that I spent the length of the diversion mentally writing a letter of complaint (that will never make it onto paper) to the council.

The diversion gave me an onwards choice between two tracks, and I opted for the one that didn’t go between farm buildings. When I got to this bit, and had to wade the last puddle, I wondered if I’d made the right choice.

Now that’s a farm dumping ground! There is more than one car in that stack.

Then it rained…

…and these cows celebrated my visit by repeatedly stampeding right up to the fence, before stampeding back across the field:

What to do when you find a bench at lunchtime, but only 700m before you hope to find a pub? Clearly, my decision was to avail myself of the bench for first lunch.

Interesting design of church tower/spire, I thought:

Hmmm. That pub is definitely not open, is it?

 

(There was a bar/restaurant across the road but it had a ‘Michelin Listed’ sticker in the window and a bowl of soup was £9. I looked myself up and down and decided not to inflict my muddy state on the lunchtime clientelle.)

That’s a big old (now abandoned) chapel 3km up a 4km-long dead-end road:

Had I taken the footpaths on the other side of the river, rather than pounding the tarmac, this is where I would have emerged. Looking every bit as nettley and overgrown as I’d expected, it bore out my decision to stick to the road.

Let’s hope that’s for motor vehicles only!

A remarkably easy ascent on a gently ascending track, but after Monday’s rain it was in various states of river-esque:

The reason for the ‘road’ closure I assume:

I’d seen ‘shooting hut’ on the map and envisaged nice cropped grass outside where I could enjoy afternoon tea. I also intended to pick up water, as this was the last place where the map suggested I came close to running water (the map didn't know that the tracks had temporarily turned into streams). Clearly the tea break notion was out of the window, and aside from the fact that the river was such a deep brown colour, I decided that diverting to find water later was preferable to carrying it for the next 8km.

Looking back the way I’d come:

Turning left onto the Berwyn ridge at the top of the track, it was a narrow, and very wet, path that took me onwards. I imagine it’s usually quite dry most years in July.

Ooooh, duck boards! A nice dry-footed interlude:

View along the ridge. My earmarked camp spot was above the top corner of the far (mainly felled) forest.

Cadair Berwyn selfie. Need to look at my phone settings and see if I can stop it from blurring the background in summit selfies.

I could easily have pitched up on the ridge if: a) it hadn’t been so windy; and b) I had opted to carry water from the shooting hut. There was water everywhere up there, but in the manner of bog and murky pools, so ‘water water everywhere, not a drop to drink’. So I descended towards my earmarked spot and found some good pitches, but no nearby water (you can see on my gpx line on the map snippet at the top that I took a little detour down to the N, but not being able to hear any tinkling or babbling, I reascended for a rethink).

There’s definitely water down there, but from this vantage point the ground surrounding the llyn doesn’t look great for camping.

Unexpected! I took a little detour to make sure there wasn’t a farmer lying dead or injured alongside, but up close I could see it had been there for some time:

Far from an ideal pitch, but not the worst I’ve ever had:

I was pitched, with the kettle on by 1730, so rather earlier than I had hoped, but I’d not seen anyone since lunchtime, and only seen one set of footprints on the ridge, so figured it was unlikely anyone was going to happen along.